Must-see RV

The motor home parked behind the Iowa Cubs' park? That's Rod Beck's. Stop in and have a cold one.

May 19, 2003

DES MOINES — "The Shooter" lives in a van down by the river.

"It's really a pretty cool place; I'm not trailer trash," Rod Beck says with a smile, then offers a cold brew as he guides a visitor through his state-of-the-art 36-foot Winnebago.

When the three-time former All-Star relief pitcher isn't rehabbing his surgically repaired right arm by pitching for the Triple-A Iowa Cubs, he lives in his RV, which is parked just behind the center-field scoreboard of Sec Taylor Stadium, about 50 yards from the Des Moines River.

Greeting fans inside and outside his van after games has become customary for Beck, who considers himself "a blue-collar guy" at heart.

"The people here in Des Moines are nice people. At first I was thinking, 'I hope I don't pitch bad, because then they'll put spray paint on it.' But I'm originally from Los Angeles. That's what happens in L.A. The people out here have been great," he says.

With a shaved head and Fu Manchu mustache, Beck remains unpretentious.

"I'm just regular people like anyone else," he says.

Beck, 34, missed the 2002 season to have reconstructive surgery on his right elbow. After spending the 2000 and 2001 seasons with the Boston Red Sox, he signed a minor-league contract with the Cubs in January. He had helped the Cubs to the 1998 NL playoffs with 51 saves.

"The best fun I ever had was with the '98 Cubs," Beck says. "That's because there's been so much futility with the Cubs. To win the wild card and make the playoffs ... the way the city treated us was great."

With 266 career saves in the majors, Beck is eager to be called up by the big club. He performed well in spring training with a 2.16 ERA in 81 1/43 innings, but his fastball that once timed out at 98 m.p.h. for the Giants a decade ago had lost about

20 m.p.h. of zip after the surgery.

"I thought I was only going to be down here [in Des Moines] two weeks, or three weeks, maybe," Beck says. "So I figured, rather than coming down here and getting an apartment with some furniture and paying the phone bill, I'd just take my own stuff."

If the Cubs do call him up, Beck doesn't plan to bring the van to Chicago.

"I don't think there are too many places in Chicago to park that thing," he says.

"Going on road trips and leaving that RV in the Wrigley Field parking lot wouldn't be good."